Vacuum cleaners of various designs are used in residential and commercial applications for cleaning. These vacuum cleaners create a suction airflow that picks up dirt and dust particulates from a surface to be cleaned. The vacuum cleaner separates these particulates from an ingested air for later disposal.
One type of vacuum cleaner design is a canister style vacuum cleaner with a water bath. Water bath vacuum cleaners typically include a main housing with a removably attached water bath pan. The ingested particulates are directed into a water bath that absorbs most of the particulates. The particulates are directed through an inlet in the main housing of the vacuum cleaner to an intake opening in the water bath pan.
The water bath vacuum cleaners typically include a separator assembly that is used to further separate the particulates from the ingested air that escapes entrapment within the water bath. Additionally, the separator can separate the particulates that are entrained within water droplets that are ingested into the separator. The separator provides additional filtration by centrifugation. To prevent the liquid particulates from entering the area between the separator and the output shaft of the motor disposed within the housing of the vacuum cleaner, the separator includes a spider. During vacuum cleaning process, the spider rotates with the separator and generates a counter airflow that helps to prevent the water droplets and the dust and dirt particulates from penetrating through the separator and entering inside the motor.
Numerous designs of a separator having a spider member, incorporated therewithin, are presently known in the art and shown, for example, in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,090,974 to Kasper et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,902,386 to Gustafson et al. featuring the spider removably attached to a housing of a separator. While prior art patents, cited above, disclose different designs of the separator including the spider incorporated therewithin, these prior art designs do not disclose a spider that may reduce a part count. The prior art separators do not provide for improved balancing during rotation of the separator, and do not provide an effective seal to prevent the liquid particulates from entering the area between the spider and the blower housing of the vacuum cleaner.